


Baby (Preview)

by Faerlie_certain



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Implied Murder, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Joseph Kavinsky is His Own Warning, M/M, POV Adam Parrish, Robert Parrish Is His Own Warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:08:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24111832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Faerlie_certain/pseuds/Faerlie_certain
Summary: The Mitsubishi roars to life and takes off into the darkness, racing along the treeline. Baby watches the branches speed by, remembering a time when his mother used to tell him bedtime stories about creatures that came from those trees to take little boys who misbehaved. When he would hide under his covers night after night in fear of what might come to take him, he never imagined he’d grow up to be one.----Behold: a preview of my next project.
Relationships: Joseph Kavinsky/Adam Parrish
Comments: 20
Kudos: 19





	Baby (Preview)

Baby sits on a cat-scratched couch that’s definitely seen too much action. He didn’t take the chicken out to thaw. Nor did he feed the dog. Or take out the trash or do the dishes or sweep the goddamn floor. Any other Tuesday any one of those would have earned Baby a swift kick to the groin and a night locked in his sad excuse for a bedroom with a dresser blocking the exit. A threat. A promise. Retri-fucking-bution. But tonight, Robert Parrish walks in and the dog walks out at exactly 9:18 PM. The light is off and the whole place smells like gasoline and he cusses as he bumps his knee on a box in the middle of the floor. A box that he has yet to discover contains all his worldly possessions. Baby’s puffing on one of Daddy’s cigarettes and if not for the pistol on the table in front of him, that would have earned him a night on the lawn with the dog. 

Robert Parrish kicks the box with his other leg and bites out his love for Jesus. A love he never bothered to teach to his son or his wife. God was a man’s work. Women and children need not apply. But there’s a Holy Ghost of a whole other kind sitting on his couch tonight and this one’s only got one good ear for the kind of prayer Robert Parrish needs to make it out alive. That ear belongs to the white Mitsubishi stalling for him just beyond the treeline. The boy waiting at the wheel's no archangel come to deliver him from evil, but a hellhound has a few too many teeth. Joseph Kavinsky is what you get when you ask for both. 

Baby pinches the cigarette lightly between his two front teeth and takes his time picking the gun up off the coffee table in front of him, hands steady. He’s gone over this part more times than he can count, Daddy’s legs on either side of him and his lips at Baby’s ear. Nipping into it little instructions, all grinning teeth and arrhythmic heart beating against Baby’s back. A tug at his ear when Baby lost focus and cutting purrs of comfort. It all sounds so harmless when it’s just words and metal and plastic. Take the murder machine into your dominant hand. Fuck that magazine up into the well like you’re a virgin and it’s your birthday. Grab the back of the slide. Pull. Release. Baby manages to get the job done without jamming. The noise tells Robert Parrish there’s an intruder in the house and his head snaps in the direction almost inhumanly fast. 

Baby doesn’t show the fear he feels when he looks this man in the face. He’s gone over this part, too. Robert rips the coffee table out of his way to get to him. Fingers reach, mouth spews slurs, eyes fill with hate. All the power the man held over him for eighteen years ready and visible and coming for him. But tonight he comes no further. A dog barks outside the double-wide. A newborn cries in another trailer. A woman lets out a noise most people don’t have a word for. The door swings peacefully shut as Baby exits and walks back to the trees. 

The double-wide starts to smoke behind him. He pulls a car door open and climbs in, letting his body melt into the seat. Daddy holds out a hand, waiting for something to fall into it. Baby shakes his head. 

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Daddy’s laughing. “You chewed up three whole fucking cigs?” Baby shakes his head again, feeling like a ghost. Fingers run along his forearm, not gentle, but not unkind. Baby turns to look at him. The hand goes to his cheekbone and his thumb rubs something away. The thumb goes into Daddy’s mouth and he sucks off whatever it was, exhaling a breath that smells like metal when he’s finished. Daddy catches him looking and leans into the hunger he sees in Baby’s eyes, but Baby pulls quickly away. A window on the double-wide bursts and shatters, smoke creeping out from where the glass used to be. 

“Let me get this straight,” Daddy’s eyes narrow as he speaks. “I help you deal with the sperm donor and I still don’t get to stick my tongue down your throat?” Baby laughs, secret and strange, and shrugs in response. He reaches a hand over and grips Daddy’s thigh and then lets his hand stray, but Daddy catches it before it gets too far, bringing Baby’s wrist to his lips and biting the sensitive skin there just enough to smart before tossing it back into the passenger seat where it belongs. The Mitsubishi roars to life and takes off into the darkness, racing along the treeline. Baby watches the branches speed by, remembering a time when his mother used to tell him bedtime stories about creatures that came from those trees to take little boys who misbehaved. When he would hide under his covers night after night in fear of what might come to take him, he never imagined he’d grow up to be one. 


End file.
